up anymore.”
“I’ve spoilt it,” he said regretfully.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does. I’m sorry. I really am.”
She stared at him.
He could feel her scepticism and the turbulence of spirit behind it. He held her gaze, projecting sincerity, determined she know he genuinely rued the way he’d treated her. Whoever she was, whatever she was, she’d given something special to the last years of his grandfather’s life and he did respect that.
“Please...I’d be grateful if you could overlook my manner to you regarding the clothes...and other things,” he said, desperate to break the tension between them. “I’ve been very wrong to cast any aspersion on what gave everyone here pleasure. Most of all, my grandfather.”
Her gaze slid away. Sadness was etched on her face. Beau wanted to reach out to her but didn’t know how without seeming to be threatening. He searched his mind for a more effective peace-offering and couldn’t come up with anything.
“I called a women’s clinic.” The soft words were directed at the carpet. It obviously took an act of will to bring her gaze up to his again and the resolution in her eyes didn’t quite cover the fear and anguish behind it. “I can have a blood test in four days. It takes one working day for the results to be determined. A week all up, and we’ll know one way or the other.”
She didn’t want to be pregnant. The realisation thumped into Beau’s heart. He’d been wrong about that, too. Whatever had driven her response to him last night, it wasn’t the possibility of having him father a child on her.
“They say a blood test is definitive,” she added.
“I’ll go with you,” he said, impelled to stand by her and give what support he could.
Her mouth twisted. “Don’t you trust me to do it right?”
He frowned, shook his head. “I just want to be there. Some people faint at having a blood test taken. You shouldn’t be alone. I’m involved in this.”
She looked at him quizzically, reassessingly, and Beau felt his pulse quicken with the hope he was getting through to her, touching a base that was more than physical.
Finally an ironic smile. “I guess it is a togetherness project. And it’s best you are with me to make sure everything’s correct. It removes all doubt.”
Practical. The hope withered. She didn’t trust him, didn’t believe he would actually be concerned about her.
“If the test is positive, I will look after you, Maggie. And the child. I’ll look after both of you.” he declared emphatically.
Again she stared at him. He saw her throat move in a convulsive swallow. “It’s my responsibility, too,” she said huskily. “You don’t have to feel...I don’t want to be a loadstone around your neck. And there’s nothing worse for a child than to feel... unwanted.”
As she had been.
An abandoned baby.
“I promise you it won’t be like that,” he said with a fervour that rose so strongly in him Beau had to fight the impulse to cross the room and enfold her in a comforting embrace, promising her all the security he could provide.
“Well, if the test is negative, there won’t be any problems,” she said flatly.
Beau felt his whole body clench in rejection of that outcome. It was utter madness, he told himself. She was doing it to him again, getting under his skin, twisting him around, raising instincts that raged through him, robbing him of any common sense.
He wanted the child.
He wanted her.
And it didn’t seem to matter that it made no sense at all.
Control and courtesy, his mind screamed, trying to hold on to the course of action he’d set himself. He took a deep breath, willing some oxygen into his brain.
“Maggie...could we start again?’ His voice was hopelessly strained.
She looked blankly at him. “Where?”
He tried to sort through the chaos she wrought in him and realised it was impossible to wipe the slate clean and pretend they were meeting for the first time.
“I’m sorry. I’ve given you every reason to think badly of me,” he said in wretched disarray. “I guess... what I want... is the chance to show I would be worth having around...if it comes to being parents.”
She eyed him thoughtfully. “Yes. I would need to know that.”
“So, we have a truce?’ he pressed.
She slowly nodded.
Relief drained through him. He gestured his willingness to give. “Is there anything I can do for you today?”
She shook her head, still wary of him, unsure where this was going. Beau cautioned himself against pushing too far.
“Well, I have some business with my travel agency so I’d better get on with it. I may go in to head office but I’ll be back this evening. You’ll join me for dinner?”
“If you like.”
“Yes. And I’d feel better—everyone here would—if you’d wear whatever you’d normally wear for my grandfather. Please don’t feel uncomfortable with it. I don’t want to negate what he did.”
She heaved a shaky sigh. “Are you sure about this, Beau? I don’t like treading a minefield.”
She’d called him Beau. He smiled, struggling to project reassurance rather than the sudden rush of exultation he felt. “I’m all out of bombs, Maggie.”
The missing million could stay missing until further notice. He had other priorities right now.
“Well, I suppose a truce is a truce,” she said without much conviction. “Tonight then,” she said, a ghost of a smile on her lips. Having given the agreement, she slipped out of the library, closing the door quickly behind her.
It reminded Beau of leaving her suite last night.
Trapped.
The realisation struck. She was feeling it, too. With far more reason than he had! He wasn’t the one who had to carry the pregnancy, give birth, bear all the burdens of becoming a mother.
He had to try to make this waiting time easier for her. It was the decent thing to do. Besides, he needed to score some positive points. Whether a baby eventuated or not, there was something about Maggie Stowe that got to him and he couldn’t let her go. Not until he was...satisfied. Yes, satisfied. About everything.
MAGGIE felt miserably alone in her big bed, lying in the darkness, endlessly reviewing the past six days.
Playing with fire, she thought. Every time she was with Beau Prescott, it was playing with fire. And she was bound to get burnt.
It would have been better, safer, to have kept a solid distance from him since their night of madness which had so insidiously locked them into this waiting together. Instead, she had left the door open for him to infiltrate all her defences.
Just being with him put her at hazard, his physical presence playing havoc with her senses. The daily doses of charm and caring interest made her feel even more vulnerable, seeding hopes she knew had no solid basis for growing into something good.
If it all stopped tomorrow, if the test result was negative and he gave vent to any expression of “Thank God I’m saved!” Maggie knew she would shrivel up and die inside.
Yet if the test result was positive, how much weight could she